Even Boileau, hurried along by the prevailing enthusiasm, forgot the good sense and good taste to which he owed his reputation.

He fancied himself a lyric poet, and gave vent to his feelings in a hundred and sixty lines of frigid bombast about Alcides, Mars, Bacchus, Ceres, the lyre of Orpheus, the Thracian oaks and the Permessian nymphs.

He wondered whether Namur, had, like Troy, been built by Apollo and Neptune.

He asked what power could subdue a city stronger than that before which the Greeks lay ten years; and he returned answer to himself that such a miracle could be wrought only by Jupiter or by Lewis.

The feather in the hat of Lewis was the loadstar of victory.